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Friday, July 1, 2011

It's Not My Fault!

Steve Gibson, CEO of Righthaven, is apparently blaming his own attorneys for failing to identify that Stephens Media had a pecuniary interest in the lawsuits that it filed. From Steve Green at Vegas Inc. (who deserves a Pulitzer Prize for his dogged pursuit of this story):

Wednesday’s Righthaven court filing identified by name just three attorneys who, as Righthaven put it, either didn’t "fully comprehended" the language in the disclosure rule requiring disclosure of parties with “direct, pecuniary interest” in lawsuits; or didn’t "fully appreciate" the need to name Stephens Media as an interested party.

Those attorneys are current Righthaven outside counsel Shawn Mangano and former in-house attorneys J. Charles Coons and Joseph Chu.

Hmmm. Why do I recognize those names? Because these were the guys who filed the suit against David Burnett and myself. I just love how Gibson is now throwing his employees under the bus for lawsuits that he signed. The same article also quotes Coons as saying:

Coons declined comment Thursday on Mangano’s assertions and about Righthaven, but did say, "I am not following the Righthaven saga very closely, by choice. I am grateful that phase of my career is behind me."

Yes, I am sure that he is grateful. I do hope that Coons gets stuck with some of the bills when the final class action lawsuit demanding $100 million for emotional suffering on behalf of the defendants intimidated into settling based on lies by Righthaven's attorneys comes due. "I was only following orders" wasn't a defense at Nuremberg.

There was a time when lawyers were required to meet certain moral and ethical standards because of the power that they can exercise through the court system. It is time to bring back those quaint ideas because of people like Gibson and Coons.

2 comments:

Nor, in particular, was it a defense for the BOSSES on trial at Nuremburg.

It has been my experience that the partners and principals in law firms are particularly vigilent about ethical matters, particularly this "difficult to understand" concept called "Pecuniary Interest in the lawsuit". Coons should not only have liability in the Class Action, he should have to answer to the State Bar, just as the Trevor Law Group LLP did for its misuse of the California Unfair Competition laws.